Preface

This essay expands a proposal on Open Data in schools that I made in 2011, which requires very little, if any, funding and central authorization/coordination to be implemented. As of this writing, I know of no other proposal of the same kind, with the exception of this 2012 presentation from New Zealand. Also, I have not heard of any large scale implementation, or had occasion to do any real work on this topic. However, I am even more convinced now than in 2011 that the idea has a great potential. Here I describe the proposal in detail, providing some anecdotes and examples to show how it may work (or is already working), and then suggest one way to implement it in a scalable way, taking into account some obstacles (both objective and perceived ones). While this is not explicitly declared in the rest of the essay, many points of this proposal apply, more than to Open Data in the strictest sense, also to Open Access and (production of) Open Educational Resources.

(this is a proposal for a talk and related workshop that I submitted for a conference that took place in autumn 2013. The proposal was accepted but eventually didn’t happen due to lack of funding for travel expenses. Since the idea is not tied to that specific event in any way, here it is)

As Spiderman would put it, “with great power comes great responsibility”. This is an age where there is the possibility of improving your life and everybody else’s as well, through the better use of computers and digital technologies. In order for this to actually happen, however, it is necessary to act: sometimes with your wallet, sometimes behaving smartly and sometimes demanding laws that protect and stimulate initiative and talent but, above all, fair competition and equal opportunities with access and use of digital technologies.